Day 10 - Friday, Oct. 25 - Tokyo to Kyoto

Up shortly before 6, a bit before the wake-up call.  When I open the curtains, it’s already light, but raining.  The typhoon we crossed in the plane caught up with me.  Clouds very low.  So the view from my 16th floor window is non-existent.
       Little was unpacked, so little to repack.
       I have my train tickets; they were awaiting me at the front desk at check-in, something I’d forgotten about organizing.
       Downstairs in time for a few helpful hints from the staff before the first shuttle back to Narita Terminal 2.  (Hint #1:  The train is in the basement of the terminal.)  I ask my way many times today, both here and at the Tokyo train station, which is huge, but finally manage to find the ticket counter.
       Armed with that ticket, I have time to buy an esnaque (a word I adopted in Peru, where it means “snack”) at - wait for it -  a 7/11, also conveniently on the basement level.  I take a picture of the toy vending machine for my grandsons and then sit and wait.

     The trains run in either direction on the same rails.  And when the PA says “the doors will close soon”, they close immediately.  The helpful PA is in Japanese, English and Chinese, and clarifies “This train is for (fill in the destination); it is not for Tokyo.”  The trip from the airport into town takes 1½ hrs through amazingly wild green landscapes.  Time agreeably spent chatting with a man from Malaysia who’s brought his two sons here for the rugby World Cup semi-final.  I hope his team - New Zealand - wins.  (I later find out it didn’t; England beat the All Blacks 19–7, breaking New Zealand's 18-match winning streak at World Cups.  But I’m sure the boys were thrilled to be there, with dad.)
       Again asking my way, this time in the Tokyo train station, I find the Shinkansen platform thanks to the “kindness of strangers”, as Blanche said in “A Streetcar Named Desire”.  The train pulls in, empties out, and a cleaning crew jumps to it; they have only ten minutes!  I watch as seats (blocks of two or three mounted on a “beam”) are swivelled 180° so they face the opposite way, something French Rail and Deutsche Bahn don’t do.  No riding backwards here.  This also requires swiveling space, which means lots of legroom.  One woman does the windows, another removes the headrest covers, yet another puts new ones on (and yes, they’re linen, not paper), still another brushes off the seats... then the crew is gone and we board the Nozoma Superexpress to Hiroshima, with two stops, one of which is mine:  Kyoto.

       The Shinkansen is a funny-snouted thing that speeds up fast almost from the get-go, which French Rail and Deutsche Bahn don’t do either, having to travel slowly in built-up areas.  Most of Honshu Island’s south coast is built-up, but with areas of hothouses and fields, plus mountains in the background.  We arrive in Kyoto in 2½ hrs!  And I was right in thinking that Mt. Fuji would be hidden today.  Clouds down to the ground almost.  At least it’s not raining here.
       (An aside:  the stop after Kyoto is announced as I get off the train.  Hiroshima.  My eyes tear up, being this close to that once-doomed city.  It’s always had an effect on me because the first atomic bomb ever was dropped on it on August 6, 1945, and I was born on another August 6th.)
       I forget that I chose the Kyoto Tower Hotel because it’s right by the train station, so I tip the taxi driver well for a ridiculously short ride.  No wonder he looked perplexed when I told him the name of my hotel.  My room is small but has all I need, except a view, but the windows are rice paper anyway and I’ll be away almost all day, so who cares?  It’s quiet and on the 8th floor, which is where the hotel starts in this building.  The lower floors are offices.  Strange.

       I’ll have both meals today in the food court
on the basement level - quite a range to choose from, with a DJ at dinnertime and uniformed school girls at lunch.  As I’ve navigated all those trains today, I get cocky and try the revolving dish restaurant.  Delicious.  And fun.  Tonight I try another place for tempura.
       Between the two meals I get on a first name basis with the travel staff on the third floor.  Tomorrow is all planned out so a tour will take me to see most of the things on my wish list.  Plus they book me a kaiseki meal on Sunday and help with the train-to-the-plane on Monday
       But I get ahead of myself.  First a little laundry-in-the-sink.  Then bed!

Days 8 & 9 - transit Tahiti to Tokyo

 Day 8 - Wednesday, Oct. 23

This will be short because today is in transit.
       After eight interminable hours in tiny Faa’a Airport, the Hawaiian Airlines flight was delayed several times, in ten-minute increments.  No explanation.  Then they said “25 more minutes”... and two minutes later started boarding.  Got the explanation from one of the stewards.  Ice on the wings!  In the tropics!  And Tahiti has no de-icing equipment!  Why would it?  The flight was almost scratched, which would have been disastrous for me... but the ice melted on its own.  (Not surprising!)
       We take off for Hawaii in the dark, Captain Lovejoy (seriously) at the controls, and land in the dark 5½ hours later, after flying back north over the Marquesas.
       Honolulu Airport is huge.  I ask many questions to find my way.  Our late departure means I now have only seven hours to fritter away instead of 8½.
       First priority:  find some food - why not Korean? - while I watch the sun rise over Hawaii.
       Like Hiva Oa and Tahiti, it’s hot and humid here on Oahu, green, with mountains in the background.  And more of that same Polynesian music, mostly minus ukuleles.  But the Polynesian facial profile prevalent in Tahiti and Las Marquesas has been replaced by Chinese and especially Japanese traits... an appropriate transition to Kyoto.
       Finally, all aboard!  And to sleep.  Wake me in nine hours.  Mahalo.

Faa'a Airport, Tahiti

Day 9 - Thursday, Oct. 24 - Tokyo

Actually, the Honolulu-Tokyo flight was only 7 hours 58 minutes, arriving early at 6:30 p.m. because of tail winds.  But with the seven hour time difference and the International Date Line, plus customs (photo and fingerprints taken) plus the shuttle, I don’t reach the hotel near the airport until 8:30.
       Narita is a huge airport.  It was hard to find that shuttle.  I was told it was way back down at Point 16, but then no, so I had to go all the way back to Point 25.  About a 20-minute walk in all.  And me with little sleep in the past 36 hours, none of it in a bed.
       The ANA Crowne Praza... I mean Plaza (but that’s the way the shuttle recording pronounces it) will be fine overnight.  I experience my first warmed-seat toilet but don’t avail myself of the incorporated bidet feature.
       A shower.  And a bed.  The first real one since Hiva Oa on Tuesday.  What luxury!
       Tomorrow, on to Kyoto, my destination here in Japan.

Day 7 - Tuesday, Oct. 22 - Hiva Oa to Tokyo

Good bye, Atuona

Today is going to be a loooong day.  Or more than one day.  Because there’s the international date line in there to cross and it confuses me.  You gain or lose a day.  Lose, I guess, traveling west to east.  Because I leave the hotel on Hiva Oa at 11 a.m. on Tuesday the 22nd and I don’t arrive in Tokyo (via Honolulu) until Thursday, the 24th at 6:30 p.m.!  First, there’s 3 hours 10 minutes on Air Tahiti back to Papeete.  Then an 8-hour layover before a 5½ hour flight to Honolulu, where I’ll have an 8½ hour layover until the 9-hour flight to my destination.  You do the math.  Because I had a nightmare last night about forgetting something.
       I’m one week into this around-the-world trip and I’ve already worn everything I brought.  I’ve sprained a toe, gotten a sunburn and almost stepped on a wasp.  I’m stiff from the horseback ride yesterday.  But I wouldn’t change a thing.

       I like the island of Hiva Oa, where lemons, limes and grapefruit grow wild everywhere and you just pick them.  I would have enjoyed a rock lobster but the sea’s been too rough for fishermen to go out.  Plus the hotel ran out of fresh pineapple because it comes in from another island.  And the freighter arrives only once every three weeks.  Although there are two boats - two different companies, they don’t stagger their arrivals!  As Jean-Jacques, the hotel owner, had explained on my arrival, they do things differently on Hiva Oa.

       Yet life here can be comfortable.  Las Marquesas have their own government, except for the army, the courts and the airport, which are run by France.  A job in one of those jobs pays well.  For instance, the fireman at the airport works two hours a day (one or two flights/day, grouped time-wise) and makes 3,000 euros (about $3,700) a month.  Product prices are high in Polynesia because most everything is shipped in, but that is still good pay.

     Jean-Jacques drives me to the airport.  We pass Paco’s ranch.  And the land that Brel bought to build on before death changed his plans.  (That property was the clearing I saw on arrival and thought was a mine, then saw yesterday on the bridle path around the airstrip.)  Hiva Oa is getting to feel familiar.  

       What will I miss on this island?  The smiles and kindness of the Marquesan people, the fruit and flowers.  What won’t I miss?  The ukuleles, the humid heat and so many roosters.

Hiva Oa

For the moment, I’m in the “snack-bar” at Faa’a Airport in Papeete.  So far, so good.  A short flight over nothing but water.  The ocean was so calm it shone metallic, like liquid silver cut through with dark rivers of currents.  In other places the water was so still it reflected the low clouds.  Couldn’t help but think of Joni Mitchell:  “I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now”.

       Now on to the Far East.

P.S.  For some more photos of Las Marquesas, go to this website: 

https://xdaysiny.com/top-things-to-do-in-hiva-oa-marquesas-islands/

or this YouTube video: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgUrczhvFNY

Day 6 - Monday, Oct. 21 - Hiva Oa

The view from the top

 An early activity today:  horseback riding in the tropical forest.

Rancho Paco

       Paco picks me up at 8:15 and drives us back to his home up on the plateau, most of which belongs to his family.  (The third tribe?)  Brel bought land up here but didn’t live long enough to build his home.

That little line?  That's the path!

       A native Marquesan, Paco spent most of his life in France - a paratrooper.  Now he’s retired and has brought his French Basque wife back here where he earns a living from “hunting, fishing and horses”.
       Today I have him all to myself.  He saddles the horses - his a sprightly gelding, mine a calm mare.  Thank God!  Because I haven’t gone riding since I was a teenager... and when I see where we go...!  For three hours we ride through thick tropical forest along a “trail” not always very obvious to the eye .  (“The horse knows the way”, Paco reassures me.  Well, reassuring isn’t much Paco’s thing; remember, he was a paratrooper, so you just get on with it.)  After the forest, fields of ferns, and along precipices where the drop is vertiginous (only one horse-step away) and up and down slopes far too steep for me to savor.  Quite a few white knuckle moments along the way.  But once up there, to the very heights of the plateau, with nothing higher except the sky, the view out over everything stretches all the way to the Pacific in the distance.

The "trail"

       We make a big triangle and go past two sites I recognize.  First we skirt the end of the airport’s landing strip and I pray the daily flight won’t arrive because I could never handle a panicked horse.  But I’m sure Paco took the flight time into consideration, right?  We also reach that roundabout... and see no cars.   Paco, like Moeava yesterday, laughs at the cost incurred for all the signage put up... except for direction names.  (Of course they all know where they’re going and even I do now.)
       With only one stop during the three hours to give the horses - and my knees! - a break, we arrive back at his house/ranch.  He helps me down because my knees have sort of seized up.  They get motion back over a cold lemon drink Paco serves up.  Achy knees, yes, but I didn’t fall.  I didn’t knock my head on any of the trees half-fallen over the “trail”.  “I’ve seen worse”, Paco says when I ask if I didn’t make a fool of myself.  I guess that’s a compliment coming from a paratrooper.

He gets me back to the hotel in time for a swim as knee hydrotherapy, then a shower with clothes on (to wash the horse smell away) and then with clothes off (to wash me from horse and chlorine), followed by a light lunch.
       The afternoon goes by slowly, in true Marquesan style.  A discussion with Jean-Jacques, the hotel owner/manager.  A chat with Moeava, who’s there building something cabinet-like (remember, he’s a carpenter).  But he takes time to phone someone who knew Brel, asking him to come tell me about him.  But that man is working on his own house which is attacked by termites, so no Brel stories for me.
       I watch the sun set a fifth and last time over the cordillera across the valley.  Soon all will be pitch black, the head of Mt. Feani still in the clouds.
       Just before dinner, I turn on a light and a tiny lizard scurries up the wall.  He’s so tiny he could have slipped under the door, but he eats mosquitos, so he’s welcome here.  I call him Junior Gecko.
       From the terrace, I see the lights of Atuona.  Only darkness west of that.  And just two or three dots of light from Taa’Oa across the bay.  Past that, only night.

The plateau

Day 5 - Sunday, Oct. 20 - Hiva Oa

Again rainfall in the night - twice - and this time very heavy.  The mosquitos at today’s destination will have loved it!
       Just before breakfast, another rolling storm starting with a sprinkle, then a downpour, then gone.  Strangely enough, it gives me my first view of the rounded top of Mt. Feani across the valley.
       After breakfast we’re off to the utmost northeastern tip of the island: Puama’u Valley and its giant tikis.
       (And speaking of directions, it’s strange here to follow the sun from east to north - not south - to west.  Just another reminder I’m not in Kansas any more, Toto.)

       Our driver is Moeava, from the first day.  As the hours go by, we find that any people on the island who aren’t in Hei’s family are in Moeava’s:  uncle, grandmother, great-grandfather... Are there really only two tribes on the entire island?

We go up the road leading east and climb until my ears start to pop.  Then, at the ridge, there are three roads (counting the one we’re on) running off of... a traffic circle!  Not a single other car.  And no road signs.!  You just have to know where you’re going.  Tourists beware!

       We take the road to the left, to our first stop:  Hanaiapa (pop. 80).  Trees everywhere along the way, and in several curves (and there are curves) tall trees that rise and then spread like a parasol.  Moeava says they’re falkatas, of the acacia family.  Down and down we twist on this narrow road until we reach Hanaiapa and its bay with one lone rock shaped like a head with Negroid features, especially nappy hair.  Its old name is no longer PC, but there’s a French pastry with the same name.

Small line is the road

       After a stop to enjoy the view, we head back up along the road past a mountain called Tapaeata, which means “cloud-catcher”.  I like that.  Then, back at the roundabout, we take the third road heading northeast to Puama’u.  (Past that, there is no road.)  It’s not very wide, barely wide enough for two cars to pass - and not always - with no barrier separating the road from the void, especially in the switchback curves.  In addition, most of it is not paved - none of it was until recently - and the parts that are just track are fairly rutted and puddled.  Do not go on this excursion if you are a) afraid of heights, or b) get carsick on winding roads!  For taking photos of the coast though, it’s breath-taking.  Literally.

       There are a few tikis along the way.  One called Utuka in Punaei Valley seems to smile back at you.  But the jackpot lies at the archaeological site of Ma’ea Iipona, the largest cult site in all the Marquesas, which may date back to 1500 B.C.  There’s a large rectangular sacrificial altar where victims were killed - by garrote or club (like in Taa’Oa yesterday).  They were then eviscerated and all the organs that contain mana (spirit) - heart, kidneys, brain... - were eaten by the king, nobles and priests.  (Women got the kidneys.)

       An aside:  The kings were buried in caves high up in the cliff.  Then the steps up to the cave were broken off so no one could go there any more.  Kind of like Egypt’s Valley of the Kings.  Sometimes the top step would be broken first, in order to break off the lower ones, which meant that the men who had done the burying would fall to their death, somewhat as sacrifices.

Ma’ea Iipona

Eiaone

       In addition to the house of ancestors, there are many tikis.  One, called Makai’i Taua Pepe, is horizontal.  It represents a woman lying on her stomach, her head stretched out, arms pointing toward the sky. Experts believe it represents a woman giving birth.  There are also petroglyphs on the pedestal that represent dogs but their meaning is unknown.  (The species of dog went extinct before the arrival of Europeans in the islands; all that’s left to show they existed are petroglyphs like this one and others elsewhere.)  Nearby are two tikis standing side by side - a man and a woman.  Yet another - Takaii, named after a brave warrior - is the tallest tiki of French Polynesia at 2m43 (8 ft).  Any genitals the male statues may once have had were broken off by the missionaries a long time ago.

       Our lunch today is in Puama’u, a town of about 300, at a little restaurant addition to the House of Marie Antoinette (not the queen).  She has passed on now but her husband is still the chef and her daughter the waitress, although our three guides - Hei, Alain and Moeava - do a lot of the work for her.  On the menu:  raw fish salad, wild boar with eggplant and zucchini, goat stew in coconut milk, rice, French fried breadfruit, and ending with fruit pastry.  All delicious.

       But after lunch, one of the Swiss ladies touches something she shouldn’t somewhere outdoors and ends up with lots of tiny prickers in her hand.  I teach Alain the trick of pulling them out with scotch tape, winning the gratitude of all eight Swiss.

       The last stop on the way back is Eiaone - a broad, deep-cut bay - for a swim.  Hobbling over the rocks, I reach the sandy sea floor and enjoy being tossed around - literally - by the high waves.  A return of my Jersey Shore childhood, diving under the waves just before they crest.  I keep heading out until I’m into enough ocean to swim a bit.  Finally, a bit of simili-bodysurfing back to shore.

       The road home is every bit as turning and bumpy as the way out, given that it’s the same road.  The only road.  Back at the hotel, I wash lots of sand out of my bathing suit and off of my body, sand left in spite of the shower heads installed back at the beach.  Not very hungry at dinner, but very tired, so off to bed early.